To Serve and Protect
by TheCatalystx
Summary: Officer Debra Price swore. She swore to serve and to protect. She swore if she ever saw Merle and Daryl Dixon again, she'd plant a bullet between their eyes. But when her long lost friend, Deputy Rick Grimes, unexpectedly leads her to them, she is faced with a choice: Serve and Protect, or Survive and Forget?
1. Journal Entry 1

_Hey, Hi, Hello! _

_…That was weird. Okay. Uh, I'm not sure how to start this thing off. Never been one to keep a journal, but hey… I figured… World's gone to shit, right? Someone's gotta keep track of what's happening. And anyway, history was always my favorite subject. Never thought I'd be the one recording it, though…_

_I'm no writer, but I like to think I tell stories well enough. It'll have to be well enough – no one else is stupid enough to keep track of one of these things. Pockets and bags are filled with more practical things, like food and flashlights. _

_I've never claimed to be practical._

_So… where to begin… I guess I'll leap right into the action. How's that sound?_

* * *

Debra Price slid her boot clad feet along the pavement. Her back was pressed to the cement wall behind her, and she grasped her gun firmly in her hands. Taking a moment to puff her bangs from her eyes, she came to a stop and strained her ears to listen.

Silence.

Debra turned back to face her companions. An elderly man with a red bandana tied around his neck. He led the pack behind her, other civilians littering the alleyway.

Truth be told, Deb would've preferred it to be just her and Garret, the old man. But in light of recent events, government's a thing of the past, and really, who is she to dictate what other people choose to walk into?

"Biters must have taken the bait." She whispered to Garret slightly louder than she usually would. Garret is tough as nails, but time seemed to have caught up with the old rough neck. He was hard of hearing and his eyesight isn't what it used to be.

Nevertheless, he was an asset to her group, and she recognized the wisdom behind those grey eyes that blinked at her now.

"Alright, officer, you lead the way." Garret smirked. Debra resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"I don't think so, pal! This was your great idea." She said, perhaps a bit too loudly.

Garret raised his eyebrows. "Actually, it was yours."

She narrowed her eyes. "What?" She hissed.

"You're the one who said that people should've put signs up days ago. People have no idea what they're walking into when they go to the city. Hell, for all they know, there's a refugee center waiting with open arms for them." Garret smirked at her. Oh, there's something waiting for them, alright.

He gestured behind him at the civilians who were now shifting impatiently on their feet. "We're all waitin' on you."

Okay, yes, Debra had mentioned that signs would be a good idea. But she didn't mean to elect _her_ group to go out and do it!

She peeked back around the corner. Great. Who knew being a cop would come back to bite her in the ass so quickly? She permitted herself the luxury of a sigh, taking one last inventory of the seemingly vacant street before turning back to her group. She supposed they were her responsibility now.

"Alright, gang. Like we discussed: No one goes _anywhere_ alone, and keep your eyes alert and your ears even more so. The biters might seem harmless when you're facing one of them, but get them in a group and your only prayer is to tuck tail and _run_. No heroics." She paused, looking pointedly at the sinewy teenage boy who was practically frothing at the mouth, wrench bouncing in his hands. "This isn't Call of Duty. You've only got one life here, so don't fuck it up."

Helga, a blonde plump woman, scowled at Deb's phrasing. Well, tough. Didn't see _her_ up here leading them into a Kamikaze mission, did ya?

Deb pursed her lips and scanned the allotted groups. Looking to Kyle, a stout red head, she raised an eyebrow. "Hammer and nails?" She barked, pointing directly at him. He nodded eagerly. "You go to the telephone poles, starting at three places down. Quick in and out. Got it?"

He gestured to the small group behind him with a nod of his head and started to pass her. Deb reached out and stopped him with a hand on his arm. Looking him straight in the eye, she firmly said, "Got it?"

Kyle nodded his head. "Yeah - yes. In and out. Two hits with the hammer: One to plant the nail, one to drive it home. Got it."

She kept her face straight but they both knew she was satisfied with his answer. Taking her hand off his arm, she nodded briskly. "Good luck." She dismissed, and then watched as the group dispatched in the direction of the targeted phone poles.

Kyle moved quickly, wasting no time and obsessively turning his head in every direction. Double checking the area around him, triple checking his group behind him.

The group set to work hammering up signs rigged to ward away unsuspecting people. They picked off two curious biters, but other than that it seemed like the mission was going off without a hitch.

Content with their progress, Deb turned her attention back to the remaining group behind her.

"Alright guys. We've got two goals: The drugstore," She paused to point down the street to her right. "And the grocery store." She pointed directly in front of her, where an abandoned, sad looking building sat. "Grab as much medicine and food as you can. I think the best way to handle this is to split into two groups. Garret, Helga, Kelly, and Jimmy, you four cover the grocery store." Jimmy's eyes almost popped out of his head and he started to protest, but Deb ploughed over him. "Henry, Joe, Irene, and myself will take the drugstore since it's more dangerous."

"That's-" Jimmy started, but Deb cut him off with a blatant gesture of impatience.

"Got it?" She said directly to him, while addressing the entire group.

"I don't know," Helga said wearily. Deb's jaw clenched. "The three of you in the drugstore? That's it?"

It wasn't just the three of them. Henry, too, Deb thought. She unconsciously stroked the head of her overlooked dog, who grunted at her in response.

"You got a better idea?" Deb snapped. Anger flashed behind Helga's eyes, but she said nothing. "Then keep your mouth shut."

Garret pursed his lips disapprovingly at Deb. She focused on Jimmy, who looked ready to explode.

The pimpled, lanky teenager said nothing, glaring daggers at Deb. She ignored him, too, and tightened her grip on her weapon. Someone's gotta make the tough choices, and they elected her, and she's going to protect the children first.

A dark figure streaked in front of Deb's vision as she craned her neck around the corner to scope the grocery store out more closely. She whipped her head back around just in time to see Jimmy's retreating figure, disappearing inside the drugstore.

Nearby biters picked up his scent in the wind like bloodhounds, sticking their noses into the air and stumbling in the direction of the shattered windows of the Walgreens.

Cursing under her breath, she took off after him like a lightning bolt.

She moved as quickly and quietly as possible, jabbing the butt of her rifle into the skull of a gargling biter before it had the chance to grab her. She latched onto its shoulder and used the momentum of it falling to throw it into a group of biters who had been closing in on her.

It worked, knocking the biters down like bowling pins. She counted her blessings and sprinted across the blazing concrete to the Walgreens.

Right away she was hit with a wall of a scent that was becoming all too familiar: Death. It stuck to every surface in the ruck sacked drugstore, every collapsed shelf. The bitter scent mingled with the artificial cherry-sweetened children's medicine that spilled onto the floor.

She reached into her utility belt just as Henry came padding inside behind her, ears perked and alert. She resisted the urge to coo at her police dog, clicking on the flashlight in her hand and cautiously moving forward.

She avoided piles of shattered glass and crumpled, empty boxes of flu medicine.

"Jimmy," She hissed. She inched forward, scanning the interior of the store and watching for any movement. "Jimmy!"

Henry's head whipped to the left and his ears perked up. He went on the defensive, hackles rising and lip snarling as he crouched lower to the ground and growled in warning.

Debra's eyes darted around the darkness that her dog was rumbling into. She could faintly make out the sound of something being rustled around.

Adrenaline kicking in, she took another cautious step forward and raised her weapon, aiming it at the darkness that threatened them there. She pointed the beam of light of her flashlight into the darkness.

She had just enough time to make out the edge of a shelf filled with abandoned prescriptions before the light in her flashlight flickered. _Jackpot_.

It flashed one final pathetic beam of light before darkness enveloped them.

"Crap." She muttered, smacking the flashlight around in a vain attempt to make it work.

The rustling became more aggressive, coming closer to her. Henry's growls quieted for a moment as he paused to sniff the air. She recognized this as the characteristics he has when she uses him for detecting drugs. His tail shot into the air and he shifted on his feet, barking and looking up between Deb and the darkness.

She frowned in confusion. She understood what he was saying well enough, he was telling her that he picked up on some sort of illegal drug paraphernalia – perhaps methamphetamine, but what she didn't understand was that they were in a _Walgreens_ for crap's sake! Unless the pharmacists indulged in a little white-powder-pick-me-up, he shouldn't be picking up a hint of anything.

Dwelling on why he was picking up drugs was costing her precious time. It could have been any number of reasons; they're in a _drug _store, after all. As unlikely as it was, he could have picked up on some of the prescriptions.

She clicked the safety off of her gun and rested her finger over the trigger.

The rustling came to an abrupt stop, and for what seemed like forever, all she could hear was her breathing and Henry's growling. Her eyes were still wide with anticipation as she desperately scanned the darkness for a shape – any motion whatsoever.

Henry shifted from an anxious bark, to a dangerous growl. His whole attention was on the dark, and he had lowered back to the ground. The hairs on his back were bristled in a complete upright position. Panic poisoned her heart like snow dusting across the earth.

Why can't she _see?! _She had no idea what he was looking at!

Henry's snarls had reached their pinnacle, the growling turning more and more vicious. She spared an uneasy glance down at her dog, just in time to see him spring from the floor and into the air. He launched himself into the darkness and she cried out as sounds of a struggle ensued.

Henry's feral snarls were clear. She listened in horror as her dog latched onto something and growled with every tug. Then, something unexpected happened. Henry's prey was fighting back alright, but that's not what alarmed Debra.

The prey was _alive_. "Holy shit!" Cried out a horrified voice. A man yelped and thrashing could be heard as he tried to shake Henry, something that Debra knew would be a futile effort. Henry was trained well, for exactly this situation. Once he clamped down, it would take heaven and earth to move him.

Or, a command from his owner. But Debra had no intention of showing mercy to the unfamiliar man that her dog attacked.

"Merle?" An alarmed voice called out from behind her. She whipped around and her weapon fell on a raggedy looking man, wearing a cut-off and wielding a crossbow. He skidded around a corner, moving closer to the noise of his companion struggling. "Merle!"

"Get this damn thing offa me!" The man who had fallen prey to Henry snarled, panic lacing his otherwise feral voice. She hesitated with indecision. Henry had been acting so strange, but he seemed to think this man was a threat. Her police training _told_ her not to call him off. But was it the right decision? "God damnit, ya stupid mutt! I'll kill ya!"

This threat jerked Debra's attention. "No!" She cried, caught between saving Henry and keeping her weapon trained on the unfamiliar man in front of her – particularly the crossbow that was aimed directly between her eyes.

"Call him off then, bitch!" Cutoff yelled, throwing his arm out at her and moving quickly to close the distance between them - and something told her he didn't want a kiss.

She cocked her weapon and planted her feet on the ground. "Freeze!" She commanded, and Cutoff hesitated. An unreadable expression passed over his face as he finally took stock of her appearance.

"What the-" He recoiled, stepping back in disbelief as he gawked at her in disgust. "You a _cop?_"

Before she had a chance to respond, she heard a sickening crunch, followed by a sudden yelp from Henry… and then the store grew very quiet. Debra's blood turned to ice, and she whirled around to the darkness.

"Henry!" She cried out. A dark, creepy laugh could be heard from the blackness in front of her. The sound of a boot connecting with something solid could be heard, and she had an awful feeling that she knew _exactly_ what that something was.

She yelled out in pure anguish, her vision tinting red. Without thinking she pulled the trigger once, twice, three times into the darkness. Shooting blindly, she fired at random into the black with a snarl all her own.

To hell with this man! She'd kill him, she'd kill them _both -_

A sharp crack to the back of her head, and her neck jerked forward. Her body suddenly grew a thousand times heavier as pain erupted behind her eyelids, and she sank like a rock to the ground.

* * *

_One of the worst moments of my life. I raised that dog from the moment he popped off his mom's tit, not to sound too crude. He was there from day one – and had protected me better than any person ever has, never asking for anything in return._

_And in the blink of an eye, he was taken from me. Taken from me by that _man_! If I ever see him again, he will _pay_._

_Anyway, that's how my best friend was killed. But, it's not over yet… eventually, I came around…_


	2. Journal Entry 2

**(A/N) Heads up - I'm into those long chapters. Also, I've not quite figured out how I'm going about the Journal Entries - so for now, we'll play it by ear.**

* * *

"Just kill the bitch. I already took care… Whoa, whoa, whoa, here we go little brother!" A boot became friendly with Deb's side.

She grunted and clutched at the spot he had kicked. _Just need to…Get up…_

She tried to stand up, but a number of things hindered her efforts. First of all, she fell right back to the ground on unsteady feet. Black dots swam in her vision. Secondly, as she tried to press a hand to her head, she noticed that something was restraining her wrist. She looked down, frowning. "My cuffs? … What hap- Henry! Oh, shit, Jimmy!"

She blinked fiercely, trying to clear her vision. "Close, sugalips. It's _Merle_, and this here's my baby brother, Daryl." Said a man with a black leather vest slung over a sweaty wife beater. He had a shaved head of grey hair and a developing beard. He was nursing a pretty torn up right arm, some of the muscle shredded like ribbon.

"Oh shit," Deb breathed in disgust. Had her Henry done that?

"Oh,_ now_ yer worried." He sneered. "Where was that when your god damned hell-hound nearly tore my damn arm off!" He leaned down and got in her face. "Or when ya damn near shot off my foot? Hmm?" The distinct smell of alcohol wafted into her nose, and then a twinge of something else… His eyes trailed down to her arm. "How those cuffs treatin' ya?" He chuckled darkly.

She looked back down at her wrist and snarled, jerking around the cuff to test how tightly she was bound.

"Heh heh heh," the redneck giggled, shifting on his heels and jumping back to his feet. She noticed how jerky all of his motions were. He moved at one hundred miles a minute, never stopping. "Lookit, Daryl! We caught ourselves a live one! And you didn't wanna come into the city."

It took about two seconds for the man in front of her to register in her memory.

_Cutoff. _

"Ugh," She snarled under her breath, unable to suppress her disgust. If it hadn't been for him, she would have been able to focus all of her attention on Henry… If it hadn't been for him, she would've… she could – Henry would be…

Cutoff sucked air in through his teeth and leaned to the side to spit on the dusty floor of the Walgreens. "Yeah, still say's a waste a our time." He spared a glance at Deb, his face revealing nothing.

_What had Merle said his name was?... Darin… No, it was more hick than that…_

"A waste – a wa – Little brother, will you look at this?" Merle growled, suddenly very pissed off. He reached behind the leg of the counter that Deb was handcuffed to and plucked something up.

When he leaned back over, his hand was full of a gallon-sized Ziploc bag. He chucked it at his little brother's face, and Deb saw that it was positively _spilling over_ with prescriptions. She presumed they were all from the shelves she had seen earlier before she was attacked.

"Shit that's just gonna take up space. Space we could be usin'ta-" The younger sibling snarled back, batting the Ziploc back from his face and causing it to land with a rattling thud on the tiled floor.

"_Shit_ that's worth more'n gold, little brother!" Merle roared, stalking forward. "Open ya eyes! This ain't _cops 'n robbers_ anymore." He cut a meaningful glance down at Deb. "People like us, you and me. We the ones who come out on top now, little brother. All these," He curled his lip in distaste and looked back down at Deb. "Do-Gooders and Mother-May-I's who stuck their nose up at us two weeks ago? They're lookin' ta us for answers now." He pounded his chest with his good hand, with the one that had a handgun clutched in it. "Lookin' ta us to do the shit we've been doin' from day one!"

Merle clipped his shoulder against – oh, now she remembered. _Daryl's,_ as he brushed past him to retrieve the bag of medicine. In the process, he knocked down a shelf full of heavy looking jars. They crashed to the ground so loudly, Deb winced and prayed the biters wouldn't overhear and become curious.

"Yep, way I see it, we locked ourselves up a right _menace to society_." Merle sarcastically taunted her. "Can't have a pretty little demon like you out _roamin'_ the streets, attackin' any old survivor – now can we?"

Deb's eyes widened and the gears in her head turned. Is he saying what she thinks he's saying? "You can't do that," She panicked, looking between the shifty bald hick in front of her, and his quieter brother. She didn't have the time, or the patience, to consider whether Daryl's quieter demeanor made her more, or less weary of him.

Merle threw his head back and let out a manic laugh. "Oh, says who? Certainly not _you_, off-i-cer." He walked around behind the counter near her, leaning against it as he talked to her and setting the bag of medicine down. She craned her neck to see him. " 'Sides, if I hadn't taken care uh that mutt, who's to say you weren't plannin' to try and take advantage of me and my little brother here? That you had been _followin' _us and just bidin' your time, till just the right moment…"

Dread's icy fingers ran over her body. She looked back at Daryl, who was perched on an over-turned shelf and picking through the leftovers that had been thrown onto the ground. "The only thing I was looking for was J – medicine for, if I got sick…" She stumbled, praying that he wouldn't notice. _Please God_, that he wouldn't notice she _stupidly_ almost told him about her group.

"Ahhhh." His eyes lit up, and she knew that she had just made a colossal mistake. "Well, I was wonderin' what a purdy gal like you was doin' all on her lonesome… well. Now you're on your lonesome, anyway…" He smirked, stepping toward her like a jungle cat closing in on its prey. He stopped to crouch in front of her, his back to Daryl. He tilted his head. "Right?"

Debra swallowed the rage in her heart for him talking about Henry that way. But she had already messed up one time. She wasn't about to do it again.

"S'matter witcha?" He snapped fingers in front of her face. "Dog gotcha tongue?"

"Shut _up_," She hissed, lunging at him in pure fury.

Merle sat back on his heels and giggled like the Joker. "Oh, you're feisty." He abruptly stopped chuckling and lost all mirth in his face. "I like that," He said lowly, leaning closer.

She sucked air in through her teeth and leaned away from him in disgust, pressing herself against the counter behind her. Anything to put distance between her and this _monster_.

"Merle, I think we made our point." Daryl suddenly piped up from where he had pilfered through the mess of goods, but had stopped at some point to listen to them. "Seems to me like she's learned her lesson. Gotta keep movin'. There's still that group we saw earlier in the grocery store. Seemed slow movin', prolly easy pickin'. Don't need nothin' else from this chick." Panic laced Deb's chest.

Merle's eyes trailed in the direction of his brother, but he didn't turn his back on Debra. "Just a few more questions, little brother. Patience is a virtue."

"Morality is a virtue." Deb spat, not thinking clearly in her panic. "Ethics, respect, humility - _those_ are virtues…" She allowed her eyes to trail down Merle's form. "Standards. That's a virtue."

Merle's face darkened and he became dangerously quiet. He regarded her for a few beats of silence, and for a second she was sure that he was going to hit her. "On second thought… this bitch ain't worth our time, or our _virtues_. Got higher standards than that." _How original_.

He abruptly stood up and strolled behind the counter again. "That refugee center's callin' our name, Lil' Brother! Just a few more blocks, then we're home free!"

Well, these two hadn't gotten the memo! Guess they missed her signs. What _ever_ is she going to do? To tell, or not to tell… Though, it should be somewhat obvious that the city is overrun… but hey, who is she to ruin a good surprise?

Daryl looked back down at Deb, and she saw hesitation in his eyes. He seemed conflicted about something, but Merle's sudden hiss of pain caught his attention. The dumb hick had put the Ziploc back into one of the Walgreen's plastic bags for easier transportation, but had stupidly tried to loop it over his right arm to keep his hands free. This caused the handle of the bag to directly interfere with the still-bleeding wound that Henry had inflicted.

Deb looked back at Daryl, whose face had clouded with anger. He glared down at her and scrunched his face up in obvious accusation. His eyes seemed to scream _This is your fault_, and for a split second she even felt remorse for her dog's actions.

But then she realized they were about to leave. She was still cuffed to the counter, and she didn't even have to check her pockets to know that the key was gone. _Still_, are they going to seriously _leave_ her?

Although, she also couldn't suppress an inexplicable amount of relief when she realized they were going to leave her unscathed. Well, relatively unscathed.

Daryl stood from the turned-over shelf he had sat on. He fingered the pocket of his cut off and then threw something onto the ground near her.

The key to her handcuffs rested beside her foot. She looked at him in surprise and he kept his face impassive. Although not looking thrilled with her, he had just thrown her her ticket to freedom. In her surprise, she didn't even think to reach for it.

"Well, it wouldn't a been human to just lock you up here." He shrugged off her stare and Merle's obvious discontent.

Merle scoffed and muttered something about soft nancy boys as he made his way back around the counter. Daryl picked his crossbow up and prepared to battle the hoard of biters out front, not waiting for his brother as he made his way back to the front of the store.

Suddenly, Merle was next to her. He took a moment to sneer down at her, and she returned the favor. Then, his boot struck out and the key skidded a few feet away from them. Just enough to be out of her reach, and he turned a little more towards her so that she could see a hint of a smirk. "Patience is a virtue." He said lowly. With that last thought, he chuckled to himself all the way out of the store, slamming down a few more shelves for good measure.

"Very mature." She said to the empty store.

She sat very still for a few more seconds. The Walgreens was deathly silent. She scanned her surroundings in the meantime. Everything was the same: the store was trashed, and now completely cleaned out.

And now it was void of all life except her. She turned her attention to the key lying uselessly a few feet from her. The shelf that Merle had knocked down earlier had knocked a few things within her reach.

First of all, cans. Loads and loads of cans and jars. Heavy jars, too. Also, packages filled with office supplies like pens and staples. And least helpful of all, nail polish. Dozens of containers of varying shades of _nail polish_.

_Neat_.

Just as she began to wonder to herself what she would do, a shattering noise in the front of the store caught her attention.

She jerked her head and craned her neck, straining to see what happened. It sounded a bit like a bottle had been thrown on the ground and shattered, but that didn't make any sense.

Apparently they hadn't left after all.

Accompanying the strange sound of shattered glass was the familiar cackle and hiss of fire.

"_Yeeee-hooo_!" A familiar voice cried. "Up yours, Officer Sugalips!"

_Merle!_

"_Merle_!" Daryl's voice suddenly cried out, echoing her incredulous thought. "What the hell are you doin'! Tryin'a get us all killed?!"

Their voices dropped lower than she was able to hear, though she strained with all her might to do so.

"-Lit up a god damn _signal fire_ for all the geeks out there!" Daryl's voice suddenly hissed over the flames. She could hear other choice phrases, such as _dumb sum'bitch_, but then something caught her attention.

There was another sound of something shattering, and a surprised grunt. Suddenly, she heard the familiar sound of her gun going off as the brothers shot at something. Using _her_ gun!

"Go!" Daryl screamed. "Go!"

"Daryl!" Deb shouted. "Merle! You can't leave me here, guys!" Panic licked at her as she saw smoke rising up from the front of the store.

"_Merle!_" She screamed, realizing now that she had been trapped in a burning store. She frantically rattled her cuffs, and the sound of flames consuming some flammable merchandise and creating a small series of explosions from the front of the store stoked the fear in her heart.

"_Daryl_! _Merle_!" She shrieked, hysterically clawing at the cuffs as heat caused beads of sweat to roll down her forehead. The fire was spreading alarmingly fast, leading Debra to believe that Merle had used some sort of flame accelerant. "Help! _Help me!_"

The tell-tale groan of the undead could be heard at the outer-edges of the Walgreens, accompanied by sounds of gunfire. It truly sounded like a war was waging right outside the store – putting a whole new spin on _world war _- but she had bigger fish to fry. Realizing that she was on her own and running out of time, Deb wildly jerked around to see if she could reach anything that could reach the key.

She saw nothing. _Nothing_ that was even remotely long enough to scrape the key across the floor to her. She shot her arm out and strained the length of her arm. Her fingers inadequately brushed the dirty tile feet away from the key, and she grunted and whimpered in exasperation.

"_Come on!_" She screamed in frustration. Struggling to keep the wits about her, she couldn't ignore the growling of the zombies from the edge of the store. They were growing braver and the voices were growing louder. She worried that it meant they had discovered some gap in the flame's wall, and could soon find her there, trapped in that burning circle of hell.

Her eyes fell on one of the heavier looking jars, and something in her mind clicked. Struck with inspiration, she reached forward and lugged the heavy jar in her hand. Grunting under its weight, she hit the leg of the counter. Upon the first blow, nothing changed.

A shelf behind her crashed to the ground in a smoldering pile of flame ridden ash, and adrenaline fueled her next two thrashes. She grunted and viciously chipped away at the leg, desperately trying to loosen it, praying for something to give.

Finally, _mercifully_, the wooden leg splintered. At the same instance, the jar shattered in her hand. She cried out in pain and her hand was spurting blood. Glass littered her palm, and she bit her lip as she tried not to gag at the sight of a shard of it protruding from her hand.

Seeing no way out of it, she bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. Taking a deep breath, she ripped the glass from her hand without thinking. _Just like a band-aid_…

Except it was _a shard of glass_! She screeched in white-hot pain and muffled a sob into her shoulder. She steadied her breathing and turned her attention back to her cuffs, and, namely, the leg that imprisoned her. It jutted out in an awkward angle, and she lifted the cuff to the joint of the broken peg. She yanked against it roughly and yelped in pain when it cut into the skin of her wrist.

The flames had reached the shelves directly behind her, and she was now unbearably hot. The heat of the fire was cooking the skin of her back, while at the same time causing her to sweat so much that her uniform was matted to her back.

Her hair felt like it was curling at the ends, as if it had been singed, and she didn't want to pause long enough to see if it had.

Bracing her foot against the counter, she jerked as hard as she could and the corner of the counter collapsed as she liberated herself from its clutches.

She stumbled backwards and almost fell flat into the fire.

She righted herself and raced past the crooked counter, leaping over it like an Olympian, fueled with desperation to go on, to keep moving, to _survive_. She skidded up to the back wall of the store and almost pulled her hair out in panic and exasperation when she didn't immediately spot a window.

Then she saw it. There was a small window, just about big enough for her to wiggle through. It would have to do. She whirled around on her heels and plucked up the first weighted object she could get her hands on.

With a scale that the pharmacist must've used to weigh drugs, Deb approached the window and tested the weight of the scale. It was quite sizeable, and it would definitely do the job. The problem was her ability to throw the scale into the window and actually hit it.

So many stipulations littered this plan. First of all, she's no thrower; she was the last one chosen for softball teams at the annual games hosted by her department. Put a gun in her hands and she can shoot a feather out of the sky hundreds of feet away, but put a baseball in that same hand, and she couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

Strange, she knew, but true nonetheless. But this time – this time there was no room for error. This time, she'd have to suck it up and hit the damn target. Her chest suddenly ached as she longed to have her gun back. Too bad it had been _stolen! _If she had it, she could just shoot the damn thing out. And then she thought of how the noise of that would only draw unwanted attention to herself.

And then, like a splash of icy water, she realized the _other_ stipulation. She had no idea what was behind the Walgreens. How many biters were loitering outside this window? How many would be attracted to the noise this was sure to produce no matter how she shattered it?

But all of these problems had to be slid to the backburner. Her survival was just going to _have_ to happen. That's it.

With that in mind, she reared the huge scale back and threw it like a shot put.

* * *

_Journal Entry 2_

_Here's the thing about glass. _

_No matter how you go about doing it, there's just no quiet way of breaking the stuff. It was a sure-fire way of creating a helluva lot of noise. Unfortunately, that's the only option I had. Of course, I had to throw the scale a few times before it _finally _clipped the edge of the window. _

_I used some tool that I had pillaged back at the pharmacist's counter to clear the leftover glass, and then sprang forth to sweet, sweet freedom. _


	3. Journal Entry 3

For a few evanescent moments, she stared up at the open sky and breathed in fresh air. Then she was up again and dodging biters, jabbing at them with the weapon she had forgotten to put down after clearing the window.

She found herself in the middle of a sticky widget. Half a dozen biters were closing in on her, and she was in the middle of an abandoned alley. She whirled around to see an opening and took it. She bolted through the throng of biters, going straight for an empty car.

A particularly rambunctious biter threw itself in her path. She curled her nose up at the putrid scent he emitted and smacked him away with the pointy side of the tool in her hand. It stuck straight through his head like a needle going through butter.

Problem was, it didn't seem to wanna come _out_ of the damn butter! She yanked once, expecting an easy slide, much like the first time. It was met with resistance – _heavy_ resistance. The biter's head jerked up with her hand, and she started tugging it back and forth wildly, the biter's head flapping uselessly like a bobble head and his brown sludgy blood splattering all over her white tank top.

"Alright, fuck it," She grunted, throwing the biter, and her only weapon, to the ground. From there she leapt over the now truly _dead_ biter, and launched herself towards the car.

She yanked desperately at the handle. The first tug, and she found the door to be locked. Out of frustration, she yanked the handle again with a shriek of defeat – and through what she can only describe as divine intervention, the car door swung open.

For a remarkably stupid moment, she gaped at the open door in her hand.

_What the fuck_?

"Grrraaaggghppphhh," Gurgled the hoard of biters behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and leapt into the car.

Just as the door shut, a decayed and grudge-coated hand smacked onto the window.

"No, thank you," She waved giddily. "My windows are clean enough, sir." She giggled wildly to her own lame joke and shook her head with a smile on her face, accidentally snorting.

She turned back to face the windshield, and came nose to nose with a face that was missing an eye and a large portion of his jaw.

"Gah!" She jumped, smacking at the face and hitting the windshield.

_He's not in here, Deb. It's okay. He's outside, it's okay. You made it out, it's okay. You're safe… he's not in here._

With that little pep talk in mind, she flipped off the biter who was still clawing uselessly at the glass and turned her attention to the task at hand. She leaned over to find the ignition vacant of keys.

_No matter_… she assured herself. _When has anything ever been that easy_? _I'm sure the keys are just_….

She flipped down the mirror and held her waiting palm up. A piece of paper floated down into her hand that still bled due to the jar that shattered in her hand, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. Curiously, she turned it over.

It was a receipt for wart remover from the Walgreens.

_Well ain't that a pretty picture_… she thought bitterly to herself.

A particularly feisty hand smacked the window right next to her face.

"Shut the fuck up!" She growled, chucking the balled up receipt at the biter's face. It gurgled and continued smacking the window in response.

She turned her attention to the wound on her hand. A long, angry cut across her palm was leaking blood down her wrist and arm. She had neglected to care for it before escaping the drugstore, battling the small crowd of biters, and finally landing in the safety of the car.

_But, hey. All's well that ends well_, she mused, and so set out to tear a strip of cloth from her shirt. She tied it firmly around the cut and prayed that the makeshift bandage would do.

She sighed and leaned across the passenger seat, flipping open the glove compartment and pawing through the contents. Registration papers fluttered to the floor of the car. She raised her eyebrows and plucked up a plastic baggie.

"Tissues…" She mused to herself. Pocketing the object, she continued her search. Her fingers brushed against something, and she pulled it out of the glove compartment. Holding it up to her face, her eyes narrowed.

"You have _got_ to be joking." She dead-panned, looking at the square piece of plastic that glinted in the sunlight. It was a Gold MasterCard, the name _Jerry Sprite_ printed in neat block letters. "How incredibly fucking useless." She tossed the plastic behind her shoulder without a second thought.

She groaned to herself in frustration and started to punch the dashboard.

"Of all the useless fucking things to find, what the fucking fuck!" She screamed, smacking, scratching, and beating on the expensive dashboard. So many things were flying through her mind. Where did those motherless bastards go? Where were Merle and Daryl? If she found them… As soon as she finds them…

Then a memory struck her. Something Daryl had said to Merle was bothering her…

"_There's still that group we saw earlier in the grocery store. Seemed slow movin', prolly easy pickin'..."_

Oh, god. _Oh, god!_ Did they kill them? Did they find her group? Are they alive? Did Jimmy get burned alive – oh god, did he get burned… _Had she left him there_?

"What!" Smack. "The!" Smack. "Fuuuuck!" Smacksmacksmack.

_Crash!_ Deb froze her temper tantrum, whirling around in her seat. The back window had been shattered. Apparently a shaking car wasn't inconspicuous enough in a crowd full of mindless drones that were attracted to sound.

The biters had converged on her car, and were now starting to break in. Panic burned her insides, hot and fast like an over boiling pot.

"Shit!" She screeched. "Shit, shit shit," She whirled back around as one of the biter's hands clawed at the back seat. She ducked down and tore off the plastic access panel covering the wires underneath the wheel.

Well, not all of her police training was useless. She learned how to hotwire, but she had been trained this nasty little trick for only one reason. The predator has to learn to think like the prey, after all.

She had never intended to actually _use_ the knowledge for herself. More and more biters were clawing at the back seat, catching on.

How could she have been so _reckless_? She basically rang the damn dinner bell!

"Damnit!" She leaned closer to the bundle of wires in her hands. "Okay, was it the white wires or the red?" She squinted at them and desperately ran through the instructions in her mind. Remove the paneling. Locate the wires behind the ignition. Strip the appropriate wires, and then… and then strip them… and …

A gurgle from behind her startled her into action. "Fuck it!" She muttered, ripping apart two wires and touching them together.

For a second nothing happened. And then a spark flickered between the wires and scared the shit out of her. She jerked back with a hiss and dropped the wires before they shocked her. The engine choked, sputtered, and died.

A hand clawed at the head rest behind her. She turned to see that a biter was halfway through the back window, and was clawing at her seat.

"Henry -" She screamed, before catching herself. White hot remorse and shock choked her throat, no better than if a hand had physically grabbed her and choked the life from her. Her dog wasn't going to help her. Henry couldn't take care of the biter in the back seat for her; he wasn't going to protect her. She was one hundred perfect on her own, and she blinked back her tears with a vengeance as she popped back down, grasping the wires – careful of the exposed metal and touching them back together.

The engine choked and she stomped the accelerator. It sputtered, hummed… she revved it and it stumbled only slightly before smoothing into an idle.

She threw the car into gear and peeled out of the mass of biters. The one who was halfway in and out of the car was thrown to the side, impaling it on the broken glass of the window that jutted out.

The biter sloshed and growled, clawing at the glass that was splitting its body in half. Deb was becoming annoyed at the screaming, and then she realized it was _her_ screaming. She told herself to stop screaming, but only managed to swerve the car and scream louder as she tried to throw the biter off.

It only served to drive the glass deeper into the ribs of the biter. Something in the road caught her eye and she stomped the brake while her screams broke into machine-gun-like bursts.

She screamed at the biter that tore in half behind her. The sudden stop caused it to finally sever, and its hips and legs flew off the back of the car, while the torso and head fell into the bottom of the back seat.

She gasped and screamed at the giant van that was parked in the middle of the road in front of her, both doors open and spattered with blood.

She screamed when the car skidded to a stop just inches from the fender of the van.

She screamed when the exposed wires underneath the steering wheel shocked her.

She screamed when a hand latched onto her elbow and jerked her arm away from it, ripping out of its grasp before it could scratch or bite her. She batted at the hand with her uninjured hand and reached awkwardly around to tear the door open.

She screamed again when she fell out of the car and onto the pavement.

Vulnerability. It's not the most desirable position to find oneself in – particularly when hungry predators were liable to close in on you at any given moment. Deb crab walked away from the biter-infested car that she had fallen out of, moving closer toward the edge of the road.

Just as soon as she gained control of her breathing, she looked around. There were no immediate herds of walkers in her vicinity. She had managed to put some distance between herself and the town in her haste to shake the biter from her vehicle.

Actually, she was a healthy chunk off from the edge of Atlanta, where she had been previously trying with her group. The thought of her group was enough to call Deb back into action.

She stood from the searing pavement and dusted her hands against her pants.

The abandoned van that loomed in the middle of the road pulled her attention. Cautiously, she moved toward it. A whisper of her conscious reminded her that she was unarmed, so she used extra care while approaching the vehicle.

It seemed that the blood was fresh, and that unsettled her. The doors were open. The two front doors, as well as the rear passenger doors stood gaping, and her eyes darted between her surroundings and the van.

She felt as though she was just _waiting_ for something to jump out and attack her. It was torturous, this game of chance she played. But something inside her demanded that she investigate.

Because, well, frankly – she was desperate. If she had any hope of reconnecting with her group, she needed transportation. And her last ride had become – ah, less than desirable. The sounds of the incapacitated walker could still be heard thrashing about and gurgling from the expensive car behind her, but she ignored it.

And while something horrific had obviously transpired with this van, there was the chance that it still ran. This, of course, is not something she could just shrug off. Basically, she _needed_ this van.

There was something else she was finding increasingly hard to ignore. She couldn't quite place her finger on it, but something about this van demanded her attention…

And so, these factors fueled her body as it edged closer and closer to the van. She reached the side of the passenger door. Peering in, she could see that the front seats were empty. Additionally, the keys were still in the ignition.

As she got closer she could see that a trail of blood came out from the back seat and led around the back of the van. A feeling of sinking dread weighted in the pit of her stomach. She took a deep breath and dutifully surged on.

The sun beat down on the top of her head. The skin of her nose itched, an early indication of a sunburn beginning to form. She stepped on the edges of her feet, keeping her footsteps light and noiseless.

_As if they didn't hear you approach_, a voice in her head scoffed. _You pretty much laid on the horn the entire way here._

Suddenly, something flew out of the van at her. She stumbled back and threw her arms up in front of her face in defense. Screaming birds flapped their wings as they flew out of the van, and nearly knocked her over in their wake.

She stifled a yelp and lowered her arms.

The van wasn't nearly as bloody as she had anticipated. The seat behind the front passenger seat was soaked with the stuff, but beyond that, the fabric of the van was remarkably clean.

Actually, scratch that. She could see a chunk of flesh that the birds must've been feasting on before she had interrupted.

Something didn't add up to her. The blood seemed relatively fresh, but the birds indicated that it had been there for a while. Long enough for them to catch on – after all, it's not like the meat was just laying out in the sun for them. It was inside the van.

A bloodied wrench was lying on the clean seat. Careful to avoid getting blood on herself, she gingerly picked up the weapon and turned her attention to the trail of blood.

Instincts told her to count her blessings and close the doors before hauling ass out of there.

Her training told her to check it out.

Deb gripped the wrench tightly in her hands, moving around the van slowly and praying that no more birds decided to fly at her.

The trail was relatively thin. It seemed erratic, as if something had been used to staunch the bleeding for a few moments before becoming futile. She scrunched her nose up in confusion and trekked on.

On the other side of the van, she followed it for a few feet before it abruptly ended. But that's not what made her drop the wrench. That isn't what made her jaw drop to the pavement and her heart fall out of her butt.

Oh no, that would be thanks to the blood-soaked red bandanna that lay in a discarded heap at the end of the trail of blood.


	4. AN Regarding Chapters 1-2 Face Lift

**Annoying Author's Note – AAN for short.**

I have given this story a much needed face lift. Meaning, **I have rewritten chunks of this story. **The basic skeleton of the story is still there, along with much of the details,** but concerning the dialogue and scenes in chapters 1 and 2 between Merle, Daryl, and Debra? **They're completely reconfigured.** So, I recommend rereading the first part of this story if you've already read it. **

I won't go into too much detail. Suffice it to say that someone was awesome enough to point out I might've had Daryl a little OOC. This, of course, is my worst nightmare ;_; So I fixed that to the best of my abilities. Along with that, I beefed up the content. Hopefully it's better, and in any case, I'm much more satisfied with the results.

If this is your first time reading the story, I apologize for the AAN, and you can disregard this entirely.

This is my first fanfiction, so be gentle *sheepish smile*. I'd appreciate your thoughts on the story thus far!

To make up for the AAN, I'm about to post the fourth chapter. Maybe I'll even add a little more. Tons of updates for you guys! Enjoy n_n

Constructive criticism is love!


	5. Journal Entry 4

A thousand thoughts raced through her mind.

_Garret owns a red bandanna! What are the chances that… no, it can't be coincidence._ She sucked in a disbelieving breath, ran her hands over her hair, and looked down at the ground.

Silver glinting in the sun caught her eye.

_Of course_. How could she have been so stupid? The wrench! Jimmy was carrying a wrench! And the bandanna.

Okay, clearly her group had come across the van. But it was facing the wrong direction. Why did it seem to be going back into town? Who had gotten injured? And where did they go? Obviously they had gotten into another vehicle, that's why the blood trail came to an abrupt stop, but had they returned to camp?

That seemed unlikely. If they followed the road she stood on, it was in the opposite direction of their camp. But then why had they been on it to begin with?

What the heck is going on?

She stood there in the middle of that road, dissecting the scene before her. The trail of blood that told her someone had pressed this bandana against it to try and staunch the bleeding. The birds that said the meat had been there a while, and the blood that said it was fresh.

The way in which the van had been abandoned – like something had happened and they had needed to get _out_. The key that was still in the ignition, which spoke of their haste. And finally, the way the trail ended so abruptly.

It indicated that only one thing could have happened. Er, she supposed they _could _have sprouted wings and _flew_ off. After all, if you had told her three weeks ago that the dead would start to rise, and her life would scatter to the wind in the after math, or that _any _of this would happen, really… she'd arrest you and drag your ass to the nearest loony bin.

Therefore, it wouldn't surprise her _all that much _if it turned out someone had sprouted wings. Or, more likely, they had met someone else on the road that had another vehicle, and together they fled the scene.

So Deb is confused about just as many things as she's figured out. The only thing she could think to do is to climb into the van and follow the trail – at least, until she hit a dead end.

She realized that there was a chance it hadn't been her group. She mulled over this possibility, in fact, as she slid the doors of the van closed and started it up.

She thought about how it could just as likely have been Merle and Daryl, but in that event, she wasn't wasting her time chasing the trail anyway.

And as she cruised along that road, eyes scanning for anything out of the ordinary, she also considered that it might have been complete strangers.

Well, not all of her plans are perfect.

It felt good to be traveling in a vehicle again. Funny what one starts to miss at the end of the world… A brush, for one. The kind for your hair _and_ the kind for your teeth. The shooting range, in Deb's case.

And universally, she thought it was safe to say that everyone missed the feeling of moving faster than any man's feet could carry you.

There's something satisfying in travelling from one city to another in a single day, the biggest worry in the world being a flat tire. Or, you know, running out of gas.

As the sun fell and she drove along the road that led out of the outskirts of Atlanta, a sign caught her eye. King County, it said.

_Well, I'll be damned. I guess all roads really do lead home_.

This is the town that her life had started, and ended in. The life _before_. Had it only been weeks since she had been here? It seemed so far in her memory, as she looked at the familiar fields and trees.

And then she started laughing. A dry laugh that missed any humor at all, it bubbled out of her like someone turned a faucet on and it struggled to produce water, only dust and dirt sprinkling the sink as it coughed and metal clanked – deep in the bowels of the pipes.

She laughed because _this road_ is the road that the tide turned on. Months ago, following a high speed chase that ended in blood shed and a benched Deputy. That fateful day that Rick Grimes had been shot on the job, while she had been there to watch it unfold.

She shook her head bitterly and pressed her foot harder to the accelerator, anxious to leave _this_ memory lane behind her.

Eventually, buildings started popping up. She kept driving until she found herself in front of a building she never thought she'd see again, and pulled into the driveway.

Her old house loomed before her like a ghost. She tried to suppress the emotion that choked it way up upon seeing it.

Namely, nostalgia. She wanted to run into the house. She wanted to flee from this CSI-worthy-van, and shut out the nightmare of the world behind her. She wanted to lock the door and throw away the key, dive into her bed, and curl up for the rest of her life.

Her eyes burned and her hand twitched with the longing to do so, but something held her back. Debra's eyes flickered to the red bandanna crumpled in the passenger seat. Blood stained the fabric, seeping into the seat underneath it.

Her mind was flooded with questions once again – where is her group? Are they alive? What happened to them, because she distinctly remembers dividing it so that at least two others should have joined her in that drug store.

And she _knows_ Jimmy had foolishly darted into the building before her. So where had he gone? And what led them to the van? _If it was even them, _a whisper from the back of her head reminded her. And once at the van, what had caused them to be injured? And who helped them get away afterward?

It could have been any number of things, but she found that one thing scared her above all other possibilities.

The brothers. The Dukes of Hazard. The Bopsy-Twins. Those fuckers – if they had followed through with Daryl's suggestion and found her group in the grocery store… if they had hurt even _one hair on their head_… so help her, she'd… she'd… fillet them alive and feed them to walkers! She'd force one of them to watch, she'd –

Debra shook her head to clear them of the vile thoughts.

Sure, she wanted those men to pay. For what they did, and also what they could have done. But more than anything, she wants her group to be okay. Like it or not, she felt responsible for them.

So she focused on the task at hand.

With a heavy sigh, she climbed out of the van and made her way up to the house. Surprisingly, there weren't many walkers around the neighborhood. She didn't even have to concern herself with fighting them off as she walked up the path to her porch.

Deb lifted the fake rock hidden in her garden and retrieved her spare key. She unlocked the door and opened it.

It was just as she'd left it. When first entering the house, you walked into a small entrance. It was filled with winter gear, like coats, hats, scarves, and mittens, as well as shovels and salt for the sidewalk.

She sighed, because that reminded her that eventually winter would come. Shaking herself of _that _particular foreboding thought, she stepped out of the entrance and into her living room.

It nearly knocked her back a few steps, the shock she was racked with upon finding the mess that lay inside. Her house had been _ransacked_. Positively _gutted_.

Irrational panic laced through her veins, and her hands started shaking. She took shaky steps forward, stumbling over the shattered glass of a candle.

Her head whipped down so fast, she thought she'd break her neck, and she completely overreacted to the loud crunching noise that erupted from her boot crushing some of the glass from the candle. She fell back into the wall behind her and scrambled back like the mushed wax was about to perk up and attack her foot.

She pressed a hand over her racing heart and turned her wide eyes onto the scene that stretched before her.

The coffee table was over turned. Magazines and remotes, her La-Z-Boy chair and couch, all of it – haphazardly strewn across the living room. Her television was face down ass up, as Jimmy would say, and all of her DVDs littered the floor. The entertainment center was knocked into the floor, as well. She could see through the archway into her dining room, where things were much the same.

The dining table was upright, but the tablecloth was gone. As were the afghans and decorative pillows that used to litter her furniture, and she scrunched her face up. She moved on shaking legs, picking her way over the mess and stepping into the dining room.

To her left was the kitchen, and to her right was a hall that led back her room.

The backdoor, which was located in the kitchen, was broken open, explaining how the intruders got into her house.

It did register, on some level of her consciousness, that she shouldn't be surprised. The wind outside tossed the curtains that dangled over the shattered window of the back door, and some part of her mind was acknowledging the fact that it shouldn't surprise her that survivors had scavenged her house for survival gear.

Her food, as she numbly searched her kitchen, was gone. Even some of the plates and silverware, gone. Pots and pans. Certainly all of her knives were missing, the wooden block that used to house them nothing but empty slots.

But then, things she never would have expected to be taken were missing as well.

Dish liquid. Trash bags. Sponges. Paper towels. Dish towels. Straws. Measuring cups. Mice poisoning. Baking soda. Her slow cooker. The _ice cream scooper_, to name a few. All of the doors of the cabinets were propped open, plain for her to see.

Those things aren't what finally caused her to break down. Not even the missing water she had cleverly stored way back in the bowels of her cabinets could bring her to her knees. No, as she fell to the ground in a familiar corner of her kitchen, she ran her fingers over a ring of circle in the floor that had somehow missed the dust and dirt that had collected over the years.

She didn't weep for all the non-perishables that left blatant dust trails in the cabinets. She didn't make inhuman noises as she sobbed, because her lucky-oven-mitts had vanished from their hook.

She cried because they had taken_ Henry's bowl_. They had stolen all the bags of dog food, his bones, his chew toys(what the fuck?), his _leash_. All kept in this corner of the kitchen, all of which _conspicuously missing_.

Snot ran out of her nose, effectively stopping any breathing out of it, and she curled into a ball right there in her kitchen. She mourned her best friend there, petting the circle where his red bowl used to be, as if it somehow brought her closer to the canine. As if it could somehow substitute for his soft fur and wagging tail, or kick its leg in appreciation as she stroked it.

_Oh god,_ she clutched at the searing pain in her chest. She missed him. She missed his wet nose and the way he'd tilt his head when she spoke to him. She missed the way he would nudge the back of her legs and the goofy, glazed-over look he'd get in his eyes when she would dangle a treat in front of his face.

She missed how steadfast and loyal he was, how she could always count on him for protection. She could always count on him for a laugh, too, whether it was him rolling on his back like a dork, or simply prancing around her happily when she fed him scraps of whatever she managed to scrounge up for the day. He'd always have her back, both on the job, and afterwards, when warding away biters. He'd saved her more than a few times, caught the throat of a biter she hadn't even known was behind her.

And then, at the end of it all, he'd snuggled up to her at night. And she knew she could sleep soundly, because Henry was there for her. He'd alert her if anything came close. He'd protect her if something had snuck up on them.

She lay in her kitchen floor and cried until there was nothing left. Until all the moisture in her body had soaked the floor and her sleeves as she wiped them away, helpless for a paper towel or even a dish towel – 'cause those were stolen too!

And then she remembered the balled up plastic package in her pocket, and she fished it out.

She ripped the flimsy plastic with ease, summoning forth a tissue and blotting her eyes with it. She blew her nose until she couldn't any more, and then pocketed the left over clean ones.

And even after she had finished that, she curled back up and lay there – with what was left of her Henry. With that little circle of clean floor, there in the wreckage of her life that lay around her.


End file.
